Daimler AG, Ford Motor Company and Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., have signed a three-way agreement for the joint development of a common fuel cell system to speed up availability of zero-emission technology and significantly reduce investment costs.

The goal of the collaboration is to develop jointly a common fuel cell electric vehicle system while reducing investment costs associated with the engineering of the technology. Each company will invest equally towards the project. The strategy to maximize design commonality, leverage volume and derive efficiencies through economies of scale will help to launch the world’s first affordable, mass-market FCEVs as early as 2017. (Daimler had earlier been targeting 2015 for launch.)

Together, Daimler, Ford and Nissan have more than 60 years of cumulative experience developing FCEVs. Their FCEVs have logged more than 10 million km (6.2 million miles) in test drives around the world in customers’ hands and as part of demonstration projects in diverse conditions. The partners plan to develop a common fuel cell stack and fuel cell system that can be used by each company in the launch of highly differentiated, separately branded FCEVs.

The collaboration sends a signal to suppliers, policymakers and the industry to encourage further development of hydrogen refueling stations and other infrastructure necessary to allow the vehicles to be mass-marketed, the partners said.

The companies consider FCEVs as complementary to today’s battery-electric vehicles.

Engineering work on both the fuel cell stack and the fuel cell system will be done jointly by the three companies at several locations around the world. The partners are also studying the joint development of other FCEV components to generate even further synergies.

The collaboration across three continents and three companies will help define global specifications and component standards, an important prerequisite for achieving higher economies of scale, the companies said.

Working together will significantly help speed this technology to market at a more affordable cost to our customers. We will all benefit from this relationship as the resulting solution will be better than any one company working alone.

Last week, BMW Group and Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) also signed binding agreements aimed at long-term collaboration between the two companies for the joint development of a hydrogen fuel cell system as well as joint development of architecture and components for a sports vehicle; and joint research and development of lightweight technologies. (Earlier post.)

@sd:
The Toyota FCEV gets 68mpge, the Highlander on which it is based gets 20/25 on the EPA.
Natural gas burnt in a combustion engine is no more efficient than petrol.
Even after reforming losses you are talking about using the natural gas twice as efficiently as simply burning it in an ICE.

As i said before when they said 2015 as the beginning, then i replied that it was a joke and now they say 2017 nd in 2017 they will say 2020 and in 2024 they will sell only some limited quantities without sufficient hydrogen infrastructure, etc. This is to keep selling petrol at high price because it make more profit overall for all of them.

the only solution is to organize a general strike on all car manufacturers and postpone any new car buying indefinatelly till till begin this commercialisation. It never happen in the past a strike on car manufacturers, so begin a new experience right now. Your car of today can last for another 10 to 20 years with few repair and maintenance. Postpone any expenditure and say to other car owners to do the same. We need efficiency and rebate and a change of technology and less pollution right now. Forget goverments brainwash projects from obama, bush and al gore and epa, etc. We can postpone any new car expenditure for years and years beginning today. Let gm, toyota, nissan, honda, bmw, audi, mercedes, lada, ford, chrysler, suzuki, infiniti, ferrari, porsche, ,etc go bankrupt and dismantle. It\'s more fun to buy used and do some repair by repair shops by specialist then these gang of morons. In 2 to 3 months there will be many hydrogen cars put on the markets. This is now peak oil or a customer strike, this is the same. Go see the mad max film with mel gibson. All these folks have more fun with almost self made cars then these stupid costly ice cars. After they put hydrogen cars on the market then we will wait 2-3 years for flying cars. Technology is unlimited. The problem is that some rich dishonnest empty heads are bloking any progress by impeding progress to keep petrol revenues high especially.

Honda has had the Clarity with home refueling in the hands of some people for years. Volvo has the reformer and high temp PEM C30 in the works. Mercedes and others say they will have some by 2015. Stay tuned, it takes a while.

In the 1960s NASA had fuel cells for space that cost millions of dollars, then GM put one in the back of a van and rolled down the test track. It takes a while, it if was easy everyone would have already done it yesterday.